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7 hours ago
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Colorado Buffaloes football legend Shedeur Sanders was caught speeding at over 101 MPH in a 60 MPH zone in Strongsville, Ohio, on Tuesday morning.
While the Cleveland Browns will only be giving him a slap on the wrist as it pertains to his punishment, the damage is done from a narrative perspective.
As Pro Football Talk’s Michael David Smith noted, Sanders damaged his pursuit of a franchise quarterback label with this incident.
“A speeding ticket is far from the worst offense a person can commit, but this won’t do anything to challenge perceptions that Sanders lacks the maturity NFL teams look for in their franchise quarterback. Once the betting favorite to be the first overall pick in the draft, Sanders fell to the fifth round amid talk that teams weren’t impressed with the way he conducted himself during the pre-draft process,” Smith wrote.
Sanders’ reputation couldn’t afford a mistake like this after how he came off during the pre-draft interview process that caused his multiple-round draft slide. Or rather, reporting on it spreading like wildfire over the last few weeks.
As Sports Illustrated’s Albert Breer noted during a recent radio interview with Cleveland's “92.3 The Fan,” Sanders’ functional knowledge was far behind when he met QB-needy teams scouting him as a potential early-round pick.
“I think Shedeur—and this isn't any fault of his own—had a lot more ground to cover than Dillon Gabriel,” Breer said. “He had a bigger learning curve than Dillon Gabriel. There were teams that were stunned by how little Shedeur knew relative to what they thought. He was pretty far behind.”
The timing of Sanders’ incident couldn’t be worse.
Even though he’s behind Joe Flacco, Kenny Pickett, and Dillon Gabriel in the Browns’ QB battle, many were pushing that Sanders can win Cleveland’s competition.
Reporters may not be willing to put their names on that prediction any longer.
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